I never wanted to be an enabler, let alone support staff. I even hated any mission where we as Rangers provided blocking positions or security instead of kicking down doors. These sentiments might resonate with you if you’re a warfighter.

If you’re a warfighter of any kind, at any level, looking to transition into a coaching career, leave your ego in whatever uniform you’re shedding in favor of wearing humility filled athletic attire.

There are countless qualities that soldiers (sailors, marines, airmen, guardians, etc.) display or develop during their time in service that make you natural candidates for careers in coaching – especially if you served in leadership roles. Here are just a few that come to mind (listed in order of my perceived importance):

• Mission Above Self
• Leveraging Team Dynamics
• Problem Solving
• Logistical Command and Control
• Appreciation for Physicality

Each of these can and should be a favorable attribute for your transition to coaching. However, each strength is accompanied by potentially detrimental coaching behaviors I’ve witnessed from the veteran community.

Mission Above Self

The military MUST put the mission first.

Sometimes this means sacrificing personal health and even the welfare of our fellow warfighter to accomplish mission success. Like it or not, there is always an acceptable number of friendly casualties calculated when assessing the risk vs reward of any major operation.

We all have physical fitness biases that have to be recognized and reconciled to be an effective coach. You might love powerlifting because training like a powerlifter elevated your job and fitness test performances while providing you an enjoyable approach to PT. However, putting the mission first means you have to accept that what works well for you is not what works best for everyone you coach. You won’t be effective if your only tool is the proverbial hammer that treats everybody’s physicality like a bag of nails.

As a coach, however, while your personal performance preferences should take a backseat to the needs of those you serve, your personal health must trump everything. You have to be selfish with self care to be selfless with service to those you coach.

Trust me, I paid the price for my relentless but also reckless pursuit of coaching prowess. Late nights spent dedicated to a graduate degree in kinesiology (just to keep up with the Joneses) crashed into early mornings to commute and coach within Special Operations, plus a side hustle remotely delivering personalized programming to a contingent of the general population. Carried over from my time in service, work was my comfort zone and sleep was not. To keep it brief, my lifestyle placed the coaching “mission” first and my health last. It was an unsustainable and detrimental lack of balance that propelled me professionally but sank me personally.

Pro

You tend to place your own biases below the needs and wants of those you coach

Con

You gravitate toward extremes and sometimes find more comfort in overworking than you do in practicing a healthy lifestyle

Leveraging Team Dynamics

The military is a team of teams.

Each team has a collective specialty while both smaller teams within the bigger team and individual members within the smaller team have even narrower specialties. Because of this dynamic, warfighters are typically comfortable with executing interdependently and that comfort can serve them well as a strength and conditioning specialist within a human health and performance team.

Health and performance teams have a lot of overlap between specialized lanes. Areas of overlap can be a team’s strength when its members are trusting, transparent, communicative, and place the “athlete’s” best interests above serving their own egos. However, areas of overlap can also be dead zones of liability when team members are siloed due to mistrust and lack of communication, often associated with individual insecurity and/or egocentrism.

As a coach, you are not the main effort.

You are support staff – the team behind the team. In fact, you are actually the support to the support staff. I’ve witnessed several prior service coaches struggle to disconnect from their time as the main effort and I’ve witnessed several military coaches, both veterans and those who never served, attach their status to the status of the teams they coach. A coach is not an operator, no matter what tier of warfighters he or she coaches.

You are not too good to coach up support personnel just because your contract does not specify their inclusion. You are not too good to host a wellness clinic for military spouses. It might not be specified within your contract but it damn well falls under your job to support the operator in his or her mission. Go raise your right hand again if you want to be the main effort.

Pro

You have a history of appreciating a reliance on teamwork above independence.

Con

You must embrace your supporting role because your new team is at least twice removed from the front lines.

Problem Solving

Failure in the military can get people killed.

Therefore, you likely live by the acronym, FIFO or FITFO – Figure It the Fuck Out. Most veterans are problem solving jacks of all trades, boasting a specialization in global mediocrity. The good news is that strength and conditioning coaches boast a similar resume. For example, I am “just the okayest” in:

• Weightlifting & Powerlifting
• Speed & Agility
• Nutrition
• Sleep
• Mindfulness
• “Soft” Skills (communication, culture, leadership, etc.)
• Breathing
• Movement

I know enough about each to be an effective coach and collaborative team member but not so much that I’d claim any of those topics as my true specialty. When needed, I am confident enough to dive deeper into a topic to FIFO for the sake of enhancing the health and performance of the warfighters I support. I have attended plenty of specialized courses. Much like you, I am A problem solver.

However, I am not THE problem solver. What do I mean by that? I mean that I do not confuse my mediocrity with another practitioner’s expertise. I understand concepts like blood flow restriction, diaphragmatic breathing, stress management, and micronutrients enough to apply them in a general way but I’d be dangerous if attempting to apply them to treat pain or depression, or rehabilitate injuries. I appreciate their use but defer and refer to the professionals who truly own advanced application of those concepts.

As a lighter example, I know enough about weightlifting to coach its relevant components to the military population, and even coach up amateur athletes for a competition, but I’m certainly not the answer that an Olympian is looking for. I would refer them to someone with a deeper, narrower understanding and proven track record in the sport. Your advantage as a problem solver is knowing when to tackle the problem independently and when to connect the warfighter to someone better equipped to tackle it.

Pro

You’re used to figuring it the F out and doing more with less.

Con

You need to overcome a preference for self-reliance when the problem requires a specialist.

Logistical Command and Control

The military is a machine.

I won’t pretend the military machine is the most efficient but it sure as hell never stops churning. Truth be told, a 19-year old in the military likely has more leadership and high stakes logistical experience than a 29-year old in the civilian workforce. You are likely responsible for a high dollar value worth of equipment, complex operational components, and other warfighters’ lives. Much of this responsibility entails attention to detail in both garrison and combat environments.

Your understanding of tactical movements can and should transfer to command and control of large groups. You’ll be able to maintain the collective flow while providing specific instructions and feedback to individuals – something most young coaches struggle to achieve. This skill is no different than teaching a squad to react to contact while also advising a rifleman on his firing position. In coaching, we call this global and local communication.

Here’s the tough part… You don’t actually have any real authority that offers you legitimate command and control over anybody. Do not confuse your past rank with your current position as a coach. Being prior service provides you the advantage of operating comfortably in the military space, with high potential for empathy and understanding of unique warfighter demands. However, your past is not their present. You are an asset and a facilitator, and your span of influence is earned – every last degree of it.

I honestly never thought I’d have to give this advice but it’s necessary based on too many observations of veterans who’ve entered coaching.

Pro

You are comfortable with responsibility and the ability to coordinate large groups while not overlooking individual needs.

Con

“Power” does not come from your position and you must earn your span of influence.

Appreciation for Physicality

Neither underestimate nor overestimate the importance of physical fitness in the military.

I was not a strong Ranger so I had to be a smart one. I did not inherently rely on my physicality; however, a little investment into building strength went a long way for me because I was undersized with decent capacity. For other Rangers, their time was better served honing their craft with a little less “Move” and a little more “Shoot & Communicate.”

Make no mistake – Physical fitness is absurdly important, even for those with fairly sedentary and primarily cerebral jobs. It’s essential for general livelihood. Personally, I think most humans could benefit from enhancing their movement, output, and capacity just to help them exist on the planet better.

However, no warfighter has a purely physical job. Therefore, physical fitness always plays a supporting role and its value diminishes once it exceeds what is needed to prevent handicapping mission essential tasks. How strong, fast, and far enough are specific to each warfighter’s needs and there is no universal minimum or maximum.

A good coach compares what is required to what is possessed and curiously investigates the best path to close the distance between the two. Sometimes that path is paved with bench press, miles, and plyometrics, and other times it’s paved with sight picture and trigger squeeze. It could even be paved with sleep, fuel, and stress management. Physical fitness is not the only answer.

There are two sides to this coin. One, you were an unfit warfighter who undervalues physicality because you felt you performed just fine without it. Two, you were an extremely fit warfighter who attributes your military success primarily to your strength and/or conditioning. The problem with either perspective is that it’s based on a very narrow number of personnel – One. Regardless of which camp you fall into, I encourage you to make a conscious effort to overcome your biases. Explore the possibility that physical fitness is both more and less important than you previously thought.

Pro

You’ve experienced firsthand the advantages and limitations of physicality in supporting the demands of warfighting.

Con

You cannot assume the warfighters you coach possess the same level of physical abilities and requirements as you did.

Endex

Warfighters are primed to make great coaches.

Approach your new career with humility, curiosity, and hunger. Be confident in what you bring to the table and comfortable with what you don’t. Surround yourself with professionals who are brilliant, passionate, and generous enough to help stoke your competitive fire while providing mentorship. You can offset their gap in military specific knowledge and discomfort in this foreign world while they offset your lack of knowledge specific to the x’s and o’s of human performance. Be a great teammate and never stop learning.

The military community needs more of its own continuing to contribute as coaches.

About the Author

Nate Palin specializes in physical, mental, and emotional resilience for both the front lines and the home front. He’s the founder of Any Given Day, a company that coaches warfighters, and currently serves as the Director of Operations for the reputable nonprofit Soldiers to Sidelines.

Nate served as a leader in the 2nd Ranger Battalion for seven years prior to his transition to strength and conditioning. Over the course of five combat deployments in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, he experienced the military’s performance shortcomings firsthand and observed the need for enhanced physical training to better support mission critical tasks.

He began his coaching career in 2010 as owner of The Movement Project, then narrowed his focus to the tactical sector as a performance specialist for EXOS in Washington, DC. Nate coached Special Operations Forces at Joint Base Lewis-McChord before leading the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s (NSCA) Tactical program, where he co-authored Preparing for the Army Combat Fitness Test for Human Kinetics.

Nate was an adjunct professor for CalUPenn’s graduate program in tactical strength and conditioning and briefly served as Director of Education for the FitOps Foundation before he collaboratively launched The Initiative in 2021 and independently launched Any Given Day in 2022.

Visit www.agdready.com for more information or connect with Nate directly via email –
nate@agdready.com